


and they were roommates (oh my god, they were roommates)

by starblessed



Category: Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: AWFUL roommates, Assassination Attempt(s), F/M, Forgiveness, Gen, Gleb Vaganov Redemption Arc, Living In Exile, Platonic Relationships, Roommates, its hard to be an ex-bolshevik
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 08:02:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14256543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starblessed/pseuds/starblessed
Summary: One month after they kiss on a bridge in the middle of Paris, Dmitry is perfectly happy with his life. Anya is tired of feeling angry. Gleb is living on the streets of Paris, in exile.When unforeseen circumstances bring them back together, the princess, the conman, and the assassin will have to learn to live with each other.It’s harder than it sounds.





	1. a strange day-in-the-life of... pretty much everyone

**Author's Note:**

> This was completely based off of an idea I had for an AU on Tumblr, that I’ve sort of brought to life. Funny enough, I’ve got the epilogue written already — now I just have to fill in the blanks.
> 
> Because I actually kinda love Gleb (despite the warning signs) and want him to have a redemption arc. Or at least a better ending than he got.

Having just resolved himself to staying in Paris with Anya, Dmitry isn’t prepared to be smacked in the face with yet another curveball.  
  
Here’s the thing about growing up on the streets, fleeing Red Russia, crossing half of Europe on foot, and accidentally-on-purpose rediscovering the amnesiac Grand Duchess Anastasia: it’s become very hard to take Dmitry by surprise. Impossible, actually. He’s never been easy to faze to begin with; by the time Anya appears before him on the bridge, a vision in gold and crimson, he feels the faintest flicker of shock, but it dies out the moment she presses her lips to his.

Anya chooses him, and in that moment, he is overwhelmed with more emotions than he can comprehend. Delight? Yes. Relief? _Absolutely_. Surprise? Hah — not even a bit.

So, one month after Anya finds him again, three weeks after they pick out a tiny flat on the outskirts of Paris, and one night after Anya kisses him deeply and promises to be his forever… Dmitry walks into the kitchen to find a Bolshevik eating his toast.

“What the hell,” says Dmitry.  
  
“Ah. It’s _you_ ,” says the Bolshevik. He looks impressively disdainful. There’s a smear of butter on his lip.   
  
Just before Dmitry can shout, throw a punch, fling the nearest solid object at the Bolshevik, or otherwise — Anya appears. Like a miracle, like a mirage, a rush of relief at the _worst possible time._ _  
_   
“Good morning!” she chimes, springing up in the kitchen doorway.   
  
She comes out of nowhere, actually. Anya’s good at popping up places, and even better at hiding… but she doesn’t do it without a reason. Dmitry’s first thought is that she must be hurt or frightened — but when he turns, she’s as chipper as ever. The woman he loves is _smiling_ , as if this is the most ordinary thing in the world. She breezes right past the Bolshevik at the kitchen table without even sparing him a glance. A cup of coffee (strong, black, just how Dmitry likes it) and a plate of toast, eggs, and bacon is waiting on the counter.   
  
She picks them up and rounds on Dmitry, ushering him backwards. “Dima, why don’t you sit down? It’s too early to be up. Lie down again and have some breakfast in bed! I went through all the trouble to make it!”   
  
She’s trying her best to block his view of the kitchen. Anya isn’t tall. Dmitry can still see the Bolshevik over his shoulder. He’s staring at them.

“Anya —“  
  
“Bed! Come on! We’ve got _a lot_ to talk about!”

She finally succeeds in herding him back into the hallway. The Bolshevik is cut off from his view, but Dmitry’s heart is still racing. His pulses bellows in his ears, and a surge of panic is rising up to choke him like acrid bile.  
  
“You bet we do,” he hisses, grabbing her by the arm and towing her to safety. When he slams the bedroom door behind them, he makes sure to lock it.   
  
Anya’s got an unmistakable look on her face. Dmitry has been at the receiving end of enough pranks to recognize it; the downturned eyes, the tight set of her shoulders, the way she’s sucking at her bottom lip just enough to make it pucker. Anya’s _guilty_ .   
  
It's simple math. If she’s guilty, and there’s a Bolshevik in the middle of Paris, in their _kitchen_ —   
  
“Anya,” he says slowly, “what did you do?”   
  
Anya smiles at him. It’s forced, painful, and makes Dmitry’s stomach churn. “Well.”   
  
He grips her arm. “Anya.”   
  
A spark passes between them, and the breath of silence is laden with all the things he doesn’t need to say. _Are you okay? Don’t be scared. I’m right here. I’ll protect you. You can tell me anything._ _  
_   
Anya finally meets his eyes, and Dmitry steels himself. He’s ready for anything that could come out of her mouth.   
  
“This is Gleb, he was sent here to kill me, he couldn’t do it, and if he goes back to Russia they’ll kill him for not killing me. So, he’s kind of stuck here? And he’s been living on the streets for the past month, just moping around making friends with stray cats, but this morning I was out watering the flowers and I _found him,_ and he doesn’t have anywhere else to stay, so I said he could —“   
  
She cuts herself off. The guilt is back again, and this time it’s so intense that Dmitry could scream. Or faint. He’s ready to do both.   
  
“Anya,” he says again, “what did you do?”   
  
“I told him he could stay with us?” It comes out as a question. Anya grips his hand tight, like she knows if she doesn’t anchor him, Dmitry’s soul will leave his body and descend into Hell.   
  
Correction: Dmitry was ready for anything she could say, except that .   
  
Turns out it’s not impossible to surprise him after all.   
  
So, after a very long conversation (Dmitry has too much pride to call it an argument, considering he lost) about why it’s not okay to adopt stray Red Guards off the street, especially ones who’ve previously tried to kill you and applauded the murder of your whole family…   
  
Gleb moves in. 

Dmitry is wary for all the right reasons. So is Anya. Of course she is — she’s not an idiot, and has a self-preservation streak a mile wide. She did not survive on the Russian streets for ten years without learning to recognize danger, and avoid it at any costs… but Anya is also noble, in more ways than one. Perhaps this is why Dmitry can’t always understand her, try as he might.

“I’m so sick and tired of being angry,” she says. “I spent half my life always sure that I lost something huge, but never knowing what. I was angry then, and I’m angry now that I know what it was… but I don’t want to be. I’m through with being bitter. I never was, before.”

Only then does it strike him how very different he and Anya are, for all the ways they are similar. Dmitry turns the anger into fuel and runs even faster; it’s been a part of him for so long that he doesn’t know who he’d be without it. Anya’s rage is a different color, pulsing red and violent, like a raw nerve — a massive loss which never got the chance to heal. Perhaps it never will… but if she doesn’t let that anger go, it will eat her up. It will not become part of her, but eventually might just consume her entirely.

He couldn’t stand to see that happen to Anya.

“Just once, I’ve got the chance to forgive someone,” she tells him softly. “I want to take it.”

Damn him for loving Anya as much as he does, but he can’t argue with her. If this is what it takes for her to heal, he’ll support — and _protect_ — her until the end.

Their apartment is cozy, perfectly suited for two people. They’ve got one kitchen, a living room that doubles as a dining room, one bedroom, two closets, and a bathroom with a real claw foot bathtub (it’s Dmitry’s favorite thing in the world). At the far end of the living room, there’s a sunny little terrace. Anya wastes no time lining it with flowers and lounge chairs.  
  
Their apartment is perfect for two people. It does not have room for three.   
  
Gleb is offered the couch, but just stares at them both for a moment before rejecting it. He’d much rather sleep on the terrace; the fresh air would be good for him. “After all,” he adds, “I’ve gotten used to it.”   
  
(Anya doesn’t look sympathetic. Dmitry thinks of the freezing nights she spent huddling in dark forests and beneath bridges; he levels Gleb with his best glare.)   
  
The vague recollections he has of Deputy Commissioner Vaganov back in Petersburg do not reconcile with the man in front of him now. Gleb Vaganov, back then, had a reputation that preceded him; he was a man to be feared. In Paris, he has become a shell of himself. His hair is a greasy mess, uncombed and unwashed. The beginning of a dark beard lines his jaw. His eyes are dull and usually downcast. His booming voice has been replaced by a hollow murmur, and he refuses to look anyone in the eye. All the pride has leaked from his posture. He carries the stench of the streets, a reek Dmitry knows too well.   
  
This man is not a proud Bolshevik soldier. Hell, he’s barely a man at all. He has fallen from the heights of revolution and crashed hard.   
  
Dmitry can’t help wondering _what happened_ to him.   
  
So, he’s exiled from Russia. Tough. So is Anya; so are he, and Vlad, and thousands of other people who didn’t fit the Soviet mold. Gleb isn’t special. What right does he have to let it destroy him?   
  
(He has _no right._ Not when Anya spent ten years with no home, no identity, no idea where she came from. Not when the former Dowager Empress is still the picture of dignity. Not when Lily dares to live fierce and unapologetically, never justifying herself to anyone. Gleb has no right to let himself break.)   
  
After he finishes eating their breakfast, Gleb mutters something to Anya, and vanishes onto the terrace. The door slides shut heavily behind him.   
  
“Am I hearing things,” says Dmitry, “or did he just thank the Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov?”   
  
Anya’s brows are furrowed. She stares after Gleb as if she has no idea what to make of him. “Something new happens every day,” she says, shaking her head.   
  
Dmitry sighs, wrapping an arm around her and leading her away. There’s nothing she can do for him. All he knows is that he could never hope to be half as good a person as Anya. Every day, she never ceases to amaze him. 

That night, Gleb doesn’t come back inside for dinner. Anya invites him once, but gets the message when Gleb just nods vaguely and doesn’t respond.

(Dmitry thought they were acquiring a roommate, not a glorified house plant.)

“Do you think we’re going to regret this?” Anya whispers, forkful of peas hovering halfway to pursed, anxious lips.

Frankly, Dmitry regrets it already.

“Nah,” he answers, stealing a pea from Anya’s plate and pressing a kiss to the side of her head. “We’re going to be fine.”


	2. in which gleb generally makes people uncomfortable

Three days after they allow him into their house, Gleb finally takes a bath.

This is far too long a time. Dmitry isn’t just saying that as a man who’s fallen in love with baths since they’ve become readily available to him — but as the guy who has to live in the same house as someone who was living on the streets, and smells like it. For a while, it seems like Gleb has no intention of cleaning himself up. Maybe he just doesn’t want to.

(Not that he seems to want to do much. He spends his days listless and brooding, remaining on his balcony at all times except meals — which he wolfs down like an animal. Dmitry thought breakfast with him was uncomfortable the first morning. By the third, Gleb has grown so pungent that he has to fight off a gag around every mouthful.)

Anya is the one who finally broaches the topic. “You know, we’ve got a lovely bathroom. It’s always open if you’d like to… tidy up.”

Gleb stares at her.

“There’s a marble bathtub, warm water, all indoor plumbing…”

She trails off. Her throat bobs as she swallows. 

Dmitry’s the one who finally has to say it. “You smell like you’ve been  _ dead _ for a few weeks. Go take a bath, clean up, and wash your hair. You can use my shampoo. And for god’s sake, get rid of those clothes! They’re falling apart on you.”

Gleb stares at them for a few moments, brow slowly furrowing. Then he rises to his feet, nods, and pulls off his tattered jacket.

“Thank you, comrades,” he mutters. “I will go clean up.”

He vanishes into the bathroom, and leaves his old clothes folded outside the bathroom door. Anya and Dmitry exchange furtive looks before snatching the bundle of fabric. To burn it, if Dmitry has his way.

Gleb’s old suit is grimy, worn out at the elbows, and has enough tears to remind Dmitry of Swiss cheese (another recent delicacy). It smells worse than Gleb. However that’s  _ possible _ , Dmitry doesn’t want to know — he’s afraid to find out.

He’s also a little scared to touch it. Anya has to do the dirty work. She holds up the pants and peers at them like a surgeon.

“These are in worse shape than my clothes ever got, and I spent a month in the woods.”

“I don’t think he’s the rugged type,” Dmitry mutters, glancing towards the bathroom door. (He can hear water running — the water in  _ his bathtub. _ ) After a few seconds, he clamps a hand over his nose. He can’t take it anymore. “Will you throw those out, please?”

Anya looks hesitant. “He doesn’t have anything else to wear. He’s too big for any of your clothes.”

(Dmitry’s not so sure. The last month has stolen much of the former Bolshevik’s bulk — he’s skinnier than Dmitry now.)

Anya blinks at him. Dmitry blinks back, knowing exactly what she wants, and not liking it one bit.

After a minute, he gives in. (More like,  _ gives up.) _ “Fine. I’ll be back.”

He lets the apartment door slam shut behind him. When returns, less than half an hour later, he’s toting a set of shirts in the most garish colors he could find, and pants that are  _ sure _ to be too short on Gleb— plaid, of course. It’s been a decent day’s work. Dmitry doesn’t feel bad at all.

He only feels  _ miserable _ the moment Gleb steps out of the bathroom, in nothing but a towel, smelling like Anya’s rose perfume and at least two shades shinier than he was when he went in.

For a moment, neither he nor Anya have any idea what to say. They’re both so taken aback — and a little disturbed — by the sight of a half-naked Bolshevik in front of them that they’re at a loss for words.

It is Anya who finally breaks the silence. “Wow. Gleb. You look… like a new man.”

Dmitry snaps his fingers. “Good word.”

“I feel better,” Gleb replies stiffly. “Thank you.” He opens his mouth, then closes it again. A terse few seconds follow before he says, “I’m sorry about your bathtub.”

Dmitry’s heart plummets to his shoes, crashes through the floorboards, drops straight through the nursery below them, and lands somewhere in the basement. “What about the bathtub?”

Gleb looks him dead in the eye when he replies, “It’s filthy now. Also, I tried to turn on the hot water and the handle broke off. I wasn’t sure how to fix it, so I just set it aside.” Another pause. “Also, you may no longer have any hot water left.”

Dmitry looks at Anya, turns on his heel, and marches out of the apartment.

He kicks the hallway wall so hard that the noise echoes throughout the building, and his neighbor sticks her head out the door to ask what’s wrong. Dmitry — not about to tell sweet little old Madame Mervain that he’s got a  _ monster _ living in his house — has to smile through gritted teeth and assure her that everything’s  _ fine _ .

Nothing is fine. Everything is wrong, he wants to move, and being a nice person is definitely overrated.

(It turns out, he bought a set of women’s shirts. Waking up the next morning to see Gleb wearing an lime-green blouse with lace makes Dmitry feel better… but only a little. They’re still out of hot water.)

* * *

About five minutes after he and Anya have climbed into bed — just as Dmitry is getting very interested in what they’re doing — Anya suddenly goes still.

“I can _hear him,”_ she whispers against Dmitry’s neck.

“No. No, you can’t.” His words are muffled in a curtain of honey-blonde hair. He shifts, rolling into his side and taking Anya along for the ride. The mattress doesn’t creak beneath them — it’s brand new, after all — but the sheets make a rustling noise. Anya catches her breath.

“Relax,” Dmitry tries again. “It’s not —“

“No, I can definitely hear him!” 

“It’s not like he’s right outside the door waiting for us!”

A long pause stretches between them, dead silence spiraling out like a barren valley. In the breathless quiet, something moves at their bedroom door.

_Son of a —_

Dmitry is out of bed like a shot. (He may unintentionally toss Anya like a baby doll, but the mattress catches her, and she’s fumbling in the bedside table before she’s even stopped bouncing.) He reaches the door, throws it open, and finds —

“Good evening, umm, comrade.” Gleb shifts awkwardly in the doorway. Clearing his throat, he quickly averts his eyes from Dmitry’s pajamas — or lack thereof — and finds something very interesting at the other end of the hallway. “I was only wondering if you had some —  _ ahem _ — some spare toilet paper?”

Dmitry stays very silent for a very long time.

Anya slips up behind him in the doorway, one hand coming up to rest on his shoulder. In the other, she holds a hammer. Were it necessary in this situation, Dmitry doesn’t doubt her ability to wield it well; he’s a little disappointed that it isn’t.

“Gleb,” she says, voice hushed and tight with annoyance. “What are you doing?”

“I — well —“ If Dmitry was distracting, Anya is plain terrifying — and she’s still wearing her nightgown. “You see. I. Toilet paper.”

“He needs more toilet paper,” clarifies Dmitry unnecessarily.

“Oh,” says Anya, very calm.

“He  _ used  _ all our toilet paper.”

Dmitry isn’t sure what kind of self control is required to sigh, put down the hammer, and slip out of the bedroom — but he sure doesn’t have it. Anya must be some other species, some kind of  _ demon _ with unlimited perseverance, and really pretty lips. (This is not the first time the thought has crossed his mind.)

She returns from the kitchen with a handful of napkins, shoves them into Glenn’s chest, and vanishes back into the bedroom as quickly as she appeared. Gleb is left facing Dmitry, still awkwardly lingering out in the hall, like a lost puppy who has done unspeakable things in the name of Communism.

“Well,” says Gleb, and clears his throat again, forcing a broad smile. “Have a pleasant evening, then!”

“We will!” Anya shouts from inside the room.

The door slams shut before Gleb gets to see anything else. Dmitry doesn’t get the chance to step away from the door before something seizes him by the shoulders, locks him in a deathgrip, and drags him to bed.

* * *

 

The worst part is, there’s nowhere for him to go during the day. He doesn’t even work. Dmitry has taken a steady construction position, hard labor but good pay. Anya has her family to visit, and picks up odd jobs on the side just to make some money — she doesn’t need it, but it’s second instinct to her by now. (She insists they will not rely off the fortune which is rightfully hers, and Dmitry feels far more comfortable this way.)

They keep themselves very busy… but Gleb doesn’t bother. He seems to have no desire to eve leave the house, let alone plant actual roots in Paris.

“Have you ever considered,” Dmitry broaches during dinner one night — one of the awkward ones where Gleb actually chooses to dine with them, “just… considered. Maybe. Finding a job?”

“I will not be employed by the capitalistic machine whose only job is to subjugate it’s workers and create an ambitionless slave-society wholly depended on finances.”

“Okay,” says Dmitry, and shoves a forkful of carrots into his mouth.

“I already have a job. I am Deputy Commisioner of St. Petersburg, employed by the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs.”

No one is quite sure how to point out the obvious — that Gleb no longer holds this position, and that the lucky duck who currently does would be happy to arrest him if he ever went back to reclaim it.

Dmitry and Anya exchange glances, and simultaneously sip their wine. No one mentions finding Gleb a job again.

So, the situation is simple: they’re out of the house all day, and Gleb is left there. Alone.

Dmitry would feel more comfortable leaving a wild bear alone in their apartment. Or Vlad and Lily.

The worst nights are the ones where Dmitry has to work late — when construction stretches well into the evening hours, and he isn’t able to come home until dinner has long grown cold as Anya has curled up to sleep in their bed. These occurrences only come several times a month, but they’re all the worse for that — because Dmitry can’t avoid them without making it obvious. Anya always has forewarning, and she claims not to be uncomfortable alone with Gleb.

Dmitry doesn’t care if she’s uncomfortable or not. Anya’s self-preservation skills leave much to be desired.  _ He’s  _ incredibly uncomfortable.

It’s one of those nights, the worst nights — and it comes about a month after Gleb has moved in. Dmitry couldn’t make it home fast enough; he spent the entire day worrying about Anya, but by the time he steps through the front door it’s still past midnight. He expects to find a quiet house.  _ Prays _ , really, because the alternative — Anya wielding the hammer and screaming, or Gleb having done something else — is far worse.

The house isn’t quiet.

Then again, of all the things he spent the day dreading, this scenario never even crossed his mind.

Gleb spins around in the middle of the brightly-lit kitchen — smiling broadly, covered in flour, with one of Anya’s sundresses tied around him like an apron. He’s got a spatula in one hand, and an oven mitt over the other.

“Good evening, comrade!” he exclaims — because even at midnight, Deputy Commisioner Vaganov lacks an indoor voice. “You’ve made it home safely.”

This is sort of obvious — the only obvious thing about the situation, really. Dmitry braces himself against the doorframe, looking around dazedly, as if he has stepped into another planet. Their kitchen is a mess. There’s flour strewn across the counters, egg shells on the floor, and batter… well, batter has made it to places he did not realize batter should go.

Anya is nowhere in sight, but the sight of their bedroom door closed at the end of the hall tells him she’s probably asleep. Chances are, she snoozed through this entire… endeavor. Whatever’s going on, at least Anya has the good sense to keep out of it.

Dmitry isn’t so lucky. “You,” he says, then goes silent. There really isn’t much to say.

“I will be honest with you,” says Gleb, “I’ve never tried baking before. I’m trying to pick up hobbies.”

“You,” Dmitry says again, with a healthy dose of guttural fury.

“It seems sensible to learn my way around the kitchen — and cooking is one of the most noble skills of any society, though baking itself may be frivolous. I am of the opinion that there’s nothing wrong with a sweet from time to time — as long as all common people have the means to get them!”

In Russia, they _didn’t._ Gleb knows this as well as Dmitry. He smiles, and licks some batter off his thumb.

“How do you feel about chocolate chip, comrade?”

Dmitry has his pride. He has common sense, and a healthy sense of realism which warns him this is either a dream, or a trap.

Either way, he’s starving.

Before he goes off to bed, he solicits two things from their roommate — a solemn promise to have the kitchen cleaned by the time they wake up in the morning, and a fresh-baked cookie. It looks edible, has no unseemly lumps, or the disconcerting smell of rat poison. Dmitry waits until he is curled up in bed beside Anya to take a cautious bite.

“Dima?” Anya stirs, bringing a drowsy hand up to run her eyes and nearly smacking Dmitry in the process. “Why… why are you moaning?”

The most humbling thing for Dmitry is the realization that Gleb  _ is  _ good for something after all. Then again… maybe he’s just a weak man when it comes to chocolate chips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is practically crack right now, but I have every intention of going deeper with this story — if I’m writing a Gleb Redemption Arc, I’m doing it right, whether he deserves it or not.
> 
> Just some thing to keep in mind: Gleb is basically going through a total breakdown. He spent a few weeks as homeless, and now he’s entered the depression phase. He hasn’t yet /accepted/ that he can’t go back home, or that his actions back in Russia were kind of... not good, altogether.
> 
> That’s going to change.


End file.
